


Five Times Steve Didn't Say 'I Love You' (And One Time Bucky Did)

by glitteratiglue



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Backstory, Implied/Referenced Torture, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, basically a lot of sex and feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:18:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4625088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteratiglue/pseuds/glitteratiglue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way Steve saw it, it was like Bucky was part of his soul, and even thinking that made his blood run cold. So he would never say it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Steve Didn't Say 'I Love You' (And One Time Bucky Did)

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to evieeden for her cheerleading while I wrote this and letting me flail at her on a daily basis about my Steve and Bucky headcanons.

**1.**

A can of beans and a bad date: that was how it started.

Steve was alone on an ordinary Tuesday night, doodling in his sketchbook when he heard a distant rattling from the door downstairs.

A split-second later, he identified the noise as someone fumbling with the lock. Steve jumped to his feet, heart hammering. The thing was, their tiny walk-up apartment was cheap, and cheap meant you could break the lock with one kick.

Looking for something, anything he could use a weapon, he spotted a can of beans on the counter and decided it would have to do. Can clutched in hand, he turned the handle and pushed the door ajar, hardly breathing as he listened to the downstairs door open.

“Steve?” called a familiar voice. “It's only me.”

“Damn it, Bucky. You scared the hell out of me,” Steve said, slumping against the open doorway in relief.

Bucky didn't reply, and that was when Steve noticed the way he was stomping up the stairs, looking wet and sulky as an angry cat. Bucky paused when he got to the landing, shaking damp hair out of his eyes. Then he really looked at Steve, still holding the bean can.

“You thought I was breaking in?” There was sudden mirth in Bucky's eyes and he laughed, loud and rib-shaking while the water from his jacket dripped all over Steve's shoes.

“You're soaking me, Buck,” Steve told him pointedly.

Bucky took a step back. “Aw, sorry. The rain started to come down as soon as I left. But seriously, Stevie, a can of beans? What were you gonna do, throw it at my head?”

With an inward sigh, Steve found himself starting to smile in spite of everything. It  _was_  pretty funny, and anyway, Steve had gotten pretty used to Bucky ribbing him over the years. That was the way things had been, ever since Steve was in the third grade and this cocky little kid he didn't even know had stepped into the middle of a fight and defended him. That day, Bucky had threatened to knock the Masterson brothers into next week if they ever came near Steve Rogers again, and Steve had made a friend for life.

Steve opened the door, trying not to sulk, and Bucky followed him inside. Steve considered bringing up the fact that Bucky only left for his date with Carol Henderson an hour ago and he was back much too early for it to have gone well, but given the look on Bucky's face just a second ago, he thought better of it.

Bucky went to stand at the window, tracking wet footprints all over the floor. Then Steve heard him cough - a tiny, dry, hacking sound, and Bucky did it just once, but it was enough to send a stab of fear straight to the heart of him.

When you hadn't a cent to rub together except what they scraped together to pay the rent and have a few good times for themselves, getting sick was the most terrifying thing. Doctors were ruinously expensive and the drugs would cost you even more. It was usually Steve who succumbed in the winter months, his weak constitution and asthma making him a sitting duck for whatever bug was going around. They managed; Bucky would take extra shifts down the docks in addition to his warehouse work, even though he loathed the stink of fish that clung to his skin and hair even after he'd sat in the bath for an hour.

Bucky turned around, noticed Steve looking with concern; he scowled, like he always did when he figured Steve was coddling him.

“I ain't gonna get sick, if that's what you're worried about.” But even as he said that, his shoulders were shaking a little, and Steve could see how wet through Bucky's jacket was, how thin and inadequate it was against a cruel New York winter.

“That's for me to decide." Steve folded his arms. “Look, you need to get those clothes off or you'll catch your death."

Bucky ignored him.

"I'll tell your ma."

At that, Bucky did look, glaring at him. “She went off with some other guy after a couple of dances,” he said after a beat, leaning against the peeling window frame, and his face was tight with anger.

That sort of thing didn't happen to Bucky often; he was used to being able to get what he wanted with the charm and smile he'd been gifted with. Steve would have given  _anything_  just to have an ounce of that when it came to girls, or getting work, or in all the other things Bucky seemed to do much better at than him.

He was good at taking care of Bucky, though. That part he could always handle, including talking him down after a girl had bruised his ego. If Steve was in a sore mood, he might have taken a little vindictive pleasure in his friend getting shot down by a girl and having to walk in his shoes, just for once, but he wasn't, and anyway, the thought of Bucky being hurt wasn't something he could ever enjoy.

“I could have asked another girl, there were plenty of pretty ones, but that soured me right up. I didn't feel like dancing anymore.” Bucky moved towards Steve, one hand worrying at his rain-soaked hair and making it stick up, and he looked small and bereft enough for it pull at Steve's heart-strings just a little (only a little: Bucky was pretty dramatic and he'd most likely forgot all about Carol in the morning).

He walked over to Bucky.

“Well, then she's not a dame worth a damn,” Steve said, briefly clapping a hand to Bucky's shoulder.

At that, there was a half-smile on Bucky's face, his lips quirking up at the corners.

It was the same thing Bucky would always say to Steve after he dragged him out on double dates, having told the prospective young woman all about his sensitive artist friend Steven. Inevitably, the girl would roll her eyes upon seeing Steve and he'd have to spend the rest of the night trying to make stilted conversation while Bucky was macking on his girl next to them. Bucky never stayed out too long on those nights, at least. Those nights, he declined invitations to go dancing or for more tempting prospects, in favour of going home with Steve and ranting about how he was going to choose better next time, better than a girl who wasn't good enough for his Stevie.

Steve huffed in frustration, and if he was small and inconsequential, he'd certainly learned how to push Bucky Barnes around a long time ago. He stepped in Bucky's space and gave him his best don't-mess-with-me look; it usually worked - even if Bucky laughed at him first, he'd listen to him in the end.

“Jacket off. Now.” As if to make his point, Steve gave Bucky a gentle shove.

Bucky held up his hands and grinned at Steve like butter wouldn't melt. “I guess I can't say no, can I?”

Without thinking, Steve was reaching for Bucky's shoulders and tugging the fabric away from them. Bucky dropped his hands, letting Steve peel off the jacket and hang it neatly over the nearest chair to dry.

Steve was expecting Bucky to start unbuttoning his shirt himself, but Bucky didn't. He tapped his foot, and there was that grin again.

“What you waiting for?” There was an uncomfortable note to Bucky's voice, an awareness that maybe he was going a bit far with this, beyond the realm of what they were supposed to be to each other.

“C'mon, Buck. Could you be lazier?” Steve scowled, but Bucky was playing his own game, standing there like he just  _knew_  Steve was going to cave and take off his shirt for him.

It worked. Well, otherwise Bucky was at risk of getting sick, Steve hastily told himself, and started unbuttoning Bucky's shirt as quickly as possibly, if only so his fingers wouldn't linger over the buttons and his brain wouldn't dwell on the idea that he was undressing his best friend. When the shirt was draped on the other chair and he got to the vest underneath, Bucky raised his arms so Steve could peel the wet cotton from his skin.

Sucking back a deep breath, Steve stepped in closer and pulled the vest over Bucky's head, leaving him shirtless and nonchalant before him. Bucky's skin was glistening damp, his hair messy from his hand rumpling it and the rain washing out all the Brylcreem, and he looked good.

Too good for Carol Henderson, Steve found himself thinking before he cut off that risky thought.

“Hey,” Bucky said, a silly, soft expression on his face that made something twist deep down in the pit of Steve's stomach. Then Bucky looked down at his pants and laughed as if to say 'hell no', but it was a breathless laugh, too quick to be natural.

“Hey yourself,” Steve said. He shoved Bucky in the direction of the bedroom before he could convince himself that unfastening Bucky's pants was a good idea. Bucky went without complaint, which made a change.

When Bucky had undressed, found a spare undershirt and put his shoes by the boiler to dry, Steve thought about drawing him a bath before he remembered they didn't have enough hot water for that.

He joined Bucky in the bedroom. They both looked at the pile of blankets on Steve's bed from last night, then back to Bucky's own bed with nothing but a sheet on it.

It had been cold enough last winter that they'd both given up their pride and started squashing up against each other in the same small bed every night, sharing blankets - just to stay warm, of course, nothing weird - and it had made a difference. Steve certainly slept a hell of a lot better than before, and coughed a lot less without that knife edge of cold in his lungs. He was sure that was due to Bucky's warm body squashed into the bed beside him, elbows digging into his side and an arm thrown casually over him.

Whatever their reasons were for doing it, it was nice, just the same. Bucky, who'd clap a hand on Steve's back during the day or squeeze his arm, never lingering over the touch; he didn't do that at night. At night, Bucky would pull Steve close against his body, making sure to share all his warmth with him. He was tender, and Steve treasured those moments when everything else was forgotten and it felt okay to look after each other.

It was a night like any other night, but for some reason they were both standing there, unsure. Maybe it was the undressing - Steve knew he shouldn't have done that, not really - or the way Bucky was obviously wounded and vulnerable, but Steve felt his skin prickle with anticipation.

Bucky stalked towards the bed and hopped under the covers, settling himself back with the usual easy confidence.

“Am I being the little spoon tonight, then?” He raised an eyebrow, flipping back a corner of the covers, and his smile was daring.  _Too_ daring for comfort.

Steve rolled his eyes, feeling warmth rising in his cheeks. “Yeah, right.”

He knew Bucky was just being a jerk and messing with him, but then he thought about the way he'd looked at Bucky's pale, defined chest, the way he'd wanted to do more than look. If he was honest - he'd wanted to kiss, and bite, and touch, and hear what sounds Bucky would make when he did that.

They didn't usually talk about the fact that they sometimes shared a bed, was all. The way it went normally, the lights would go out and he'd get into bed and so would Bucky, and with a cheerful  _“night”_  they'd curl up against each other, seeking the warmth they so desperately needed. And if occasionally, Steve woke and felt Bucky hard against him, or felt himself hard with Bucky pressed into him, he'd inch away, bit by bit. He was never quite sure whether Bucky had ever done the same in the dead of night.

Turning away from Bucky to switch off the lights, Steve stripped down to his underwear and grabbed his pyjamas to put them on, feeling suddenly self-conscious. It wasn't even all that dark, the street lamp outside leaking enough light into the room for him to see all around, but he could kid himself.

“Really, Steve?” Bucky said into the darkness, back to that same soft tone he'd been using before when he'd let Steve take his shirt off. “It's not like I ain't seen what you got a thousand times before.”

Thankfully, Steve was spared from Bucky's teasing while he dressed by the sound of the usual fight erupting next door: the Millers. Old Joe Miller liked to drink - Bucky knew that from some of the fellas he worked with down at the docks - and his wife would give as good as she got whenever he got home, having pissed away half the day's wages on beer or betting. A couple of times a week they'd go at it, yelling and bawling at each other like clockwork: Steve and Bucky could almost time it down to the second by this point.

“What do you suppose it is this time?” Steve asked, carefully sliding into bed beside Bucky.

It was quiet for a moment while Bucky listened.

“My money's on gambling,” Bucky said, and though Steve couldn't quite make out his face in the dark, he sounded like he was smiling.

Automatically, Bucky turned onto his side and put an arm around Steve. That was when Steve felt how cold Bucky's skin was, through his threadbare undershirt, and there it was again, that stab of concern that worried at his insides.

He shivered. “You're a human icicle, Buck. C'mere.”

“I'm  _freezing,_ ” whined Bucky, and pressed himself against the length of Steve's small body until he was near as tightly wrapped around him as it was possible to be, like he'd been waiting for permission to do it.

Then Bucky let out a tiny noise, like a small, soft groan, and though Steve was cold half a second ago, that sound sent pure heat pulsing through his veins. God help him, he'd never heard Bucky make that sound before; he wanted to hear it again.

“I'm tired,” Steve said quickly, hoping his exaggerated yawn didn't sound too forced. “Night, Bucky.”

“Night, Steve.” Bucky snuggled into his side and fell asleep.

Steve closed his eyes and concentrated on the cadence of Bucky's breathing, but it took a while before he followed him into sleep.

Sometime later, Steve awoke to a hot mouth pressed against his neck. He tensed, because it was  _Bucky_ , and there was no way in hell that could be real. He had to be dreaming, about to wake up any second.

“You awake?” whispered Bucky in his ear, voice soft with sleep.

Steve let out a strangled yelp, but didn't move away from Bucky; he couldn't. If it had been any other time, or any other moment, he would have moved. He would have, if it wasn't for the secret ache inside him that he'd been nurturing for longer than he even knew it existed; the ache of wanting  _this._

Blinking, Steve felt his eyes adjust to the dim light; the streetlight outside their window cast a faint glow through the gap in the curtains. He could see Bucky's arm around him, the blankets on top of them, shifting.

Drawing on his last shred of confidence, Steve moved in Bucky's arms, pushing back at him. Then he could feel Bucky, hot and hard against his thigh: there wasn't much space for misunderstanding at that point.

Bucky licked a stripe up Steve's neck that had him trembling and panting, struggling to breathe in a way that had nothing to do with his asthma. He paused.

“This okay?” It was breathed softly in Steve's ear, and Bucky's voice was more ragged than he'd ever heard it before.

Without thinking, Steve said, “Yeah.”

He was hard already - like he hadn't been, the second Bucky touched him - and tense as a spring, and when Bucky's hips started to shift against him, cock slipping against his ass, Steve groaned loudly.

Too loud, because a hand came down over his mouth.

“Shh, Steve. You've got to be quiet for me, okay?” In the half-light, he could just about make out Bucky's features; he looked hunted, nervous. “Don't want anyone to know what we're up to.” Bucky pulled his hand away; Steve thought about the family that lived downstairs, and the paper-thin walls that separated them from the Millers next door, and he swallowed hard.

“Yeah,” Steve said. He turned around, and with bravery he never knew he had in him, leaned in and kissed Bucky. It was awkward at first - Steve was using too much teeth, and Bucky was too startled to kiss back straight away, but then it wasn't.  _God,_ it wasn't.

In an instant, Steve was pushed flat onto his back and then Bucky was kissing him with hot, hungry lips, running his hands under Steve's top and pulling at the waistband of his pants. Steve ran his hands through Bucky's still damp hair, pushing it back as they kissed and kissed, willing himself to believe that the whole thing wasn't some kind of elaborate joke. Bucky gasped again, that small sound, and it sent a pulse straight to Steve's cock.

His head was spinning when Bucky pulled back, the ghost of that confident smile on his lips that told Steve he hadn't completely taken leave of his senses. Unsure what he was supposed to do, Steve settled for inching a hand up Bucky's thigh, slowly.

Then Bucky laughed, the sound cutting through the silence like a gunshot.

Steve froze, panicking. He was going red, could feel it creeping up his neck, and was glad Bucky wouldn't be able to see it in the faint light - because how could he have been so wrong, and perhaps this was all a joke to Bucky but he'd never be able to look him in the eye again after tonight and -

Bucky leaned in deliberately and kissed him again; that did a pretty decent job of squashing the sudden paranoia inside Steve's head.

“It's okay,” whispered Bucky, and he was close enough that Steve could see right through that bright, self-assured smile, could see that somewhere inside, Bucky was as terrified as he was. “Gonna make you feel good.”

Steve let out a long breath and dropped his hands to the sheets. He had to admit, there was something pretty satisfying in knowing that even Bucky's devil-may-care attitude had its limits.

He reached for Bucky's undershirt and yanked it over his head in a rush. Steve slipped his pyjama top off and Bucky leaned in to kiss him, his skin hot where they were pressed together.

When Bucky's hand slid down Steve's stomach, beneath the material to palm at his cock, Steve had to sink teeth into his lip to keep from yelling. The hand was smooth and cool on his overheated skin, and every touch was a blazing fire. Wriggling a little, Steve slid his pants down his hips, leaving his dick free for Bucky's touch.

Bucky's grip was loose and graceless at first, his hand shaking a little, but then Steve reached up to stroke his hair out of his eyes, and that small tenderness seemed to quiet whatever nerves had come over Bucky. He found a rhythm quickly, with smooth, sure strokes that had Steve huffing sharp breaths from between his lips, conscious that he couldn't make any of the other sounds he wanted to make.

He could hear Bucky's breathing, sharp and fast and heavy in the pin-drop quiet of their bedroom, and the bedframe squeaking with the motion, and maybe it was too noisy, and maybe Steve didn't care, not a bit.

Steve tensed in Bucky's arms; it was barrelling towards him, too fast, and he'd wanted this for too long, fantasised about it too many times to last much longer.

“I'm gonna -” he choked out as quietly as he could, in this rough, low tone he couldn't ever remember using. Bucky just kept on going, looking right at Steve with honest, open eyes, and that was it. Steve bit off a moan as he came all over Bucky's hand and both their stomachs.

Bucky grabbed Steve's shirt from the floor and wiped them both off, casual as can be. Steve licked his lips, tasting blood.

“You'd better be the one washing that,” he told Bucky, as primly he could manage when he was still trembling from head to toe.

Bucky snickered and tossed the shirt aside.

Steve looked down at Bucky, still evidently hard, and a breath caught in his throat. “Want me to?”

“Nah, it's fine, honest,” Bucky said, breezy and light. "Just wanted to do something for you, you know? Night, Steve.” And Bucky rolled right over and went straight to sleep, like it had never happened.

Steve's eyes might as well have been stapled open, after that. He lay there for what seemed like hours with sweat-damp skin and a pounding heartbeat, staring at the ceiling and willing himself to go back to sleep.

The truth hit him like a ton of bricks, like he hadn't been thinking it for ages, but there it was: he  _loved_ Bucky, pure and simple. He loved him enough to want to shake him awake and whisper the words into his ear, but he knew it could never be like that. Maybe Bucky had wanted him, just a little, but soft words in the dead of night weren't the same as the longing Steve felt down to his bones every single time he looked at Bucky. The way Steve saw it, it was like Bucky was part of his soul, and even  _thinking_ that made his blood run cold.

So he would never say it.

Bucky was already at work when he woke up; Steve's shirt was hanging over one of the kitchen cupboard handles, damp and freshly scrubbed. They never mentioned it, but there was something falsely cheerful about Bucky's smile when he got home and told Steve he'd bagged a date with Mary Donald that night.

Back on the horse, water off a duck's back - that was Bucky. Business as usual.

Steve locked away the memory and that worked most of the time, except when Bucky said something sweet (that wasn't all that often) or looked at him for a little too long. Those times, it was a lot harder for Steve to forget about the touch of Bucky's hands on his skin and the heat of his mouth. Harder still was remembering why he was supposed to forget in the first place.

 

**2.**

The next winter, Bucky was sick and Steve had never been so scared in his life. He'd known there was something wrong when Bucky had nearly fallen asleep in his dinner - one of their rare meals that wasn't out of a can or boiled, the pork chops they'd bought specially on account of Steve selling a few of his sketches. There was a bad case of flu going around and Bucky had just laughed and told Steve he'd be fine, that it was just a cold.

He wasn't. As the days went on, he got worse, and on the third day, Steve had to run down to the paper mill and tell the foreman that Barnes wouldn't be coming in today. The man was pretty sore about that, but it couldn't be helped, not when Bucky was lying in bed and shaking with fever.

Four days after that, Steve was sitting by Bucky's bed watching him sleep. It had been a slightly better day - the worst of the delirium had passed - but he still rarely left Bucky's side, afraid that rattling, shallow breathing would stop.

“Mmm, Steve?” Bucky said, coming awake, voice so faint it made something inside Steve's chest clench.

He thought of that long year his mother lay dying in her bed, her wet, hacking coughs and the deep breaths she drew that were little more than agony drawn from lungs that weren't much good for anything anymore. Steve's mother had spoken in that faint voice, at the end, and he felt tears slipping from his eyes.

“It's okay, Bucky,” he said, leaning closer, wanting to make sure he could hear him. “It's Steve. I'm never gonna leave you.”

And he meant it: in that moment, Steve was afraid of Bucky leaving him, and more than that, that all the unspoken words locked tight inside his heart would go to Bucky's grave with him.

Then Bucky was looking at him with bright, clear eyes for the first time in days, and he was laughing - a raspy, hideous sound, but he was doing it just the same. The tight knot inside Steve's stomach relaxed a little, enough that he didn't really care that Bucky was teasing him.

“I'm sorry.” Bucky smiled with cracked lips, and then his voice softened. “I'm never gonna leave you either, okay? But you were saying it like I was dying. That scares a fella just a little bit.”

Steve paused; he couldn't look at Bucky. He took the washcloth from the basin of cool water next to him and wrung it out, placing it on Bucky's forehead in a strange reversal of roles, because Bucky had done the same more times that Steve could count.

Bucky closed his eyes with a tiny sigh, apparently content to say nothing more for the moment.

“You could have been dying, okay?” Steve said, fiercer than he meant to, and there were those tears again, stinging at his eyes quicker than he could blink them back.

“Well I'm not,” Bucky said, with an exasperated sigh. “At least now you know what it's like for me every time.” That part was spoken softly, and Steve barely heard it.

That time, Bucky didn't smile because he couldn't.

Still holding the washcloth to Bucky's clammy forehead, Steve sucked in a breath and said, “I'm not as brave as you.”

It was a rare admission for him; Steve would be the first to admit that he was as prideful as they came, a fact Bucky would often poke fun at, but there it was, in all its brutal honesty. Bucky had always been the brave one, going up to the prettiest girl in the room to ask her to dance and not caring if he got socked in the jaw for his trouble.

Whenever Steve got sick, Bucky would take care of him with a cheerful optimism that never faltered; he never seemed to doubt that Steve would get better, and he'd tell him so.

“The hell you aren't.” Bucky's voice was sharp and angry, and he pushed Steve's hand away from his forehead, letting the washcloth drop. He propped himself up on his elbows, shaking and ungainly, but he managed to push himself into a sitting position, enough that his eyes were level with Steve and he could glare at him.

Steve wasn't intimidated, not a bit - he knew Bucky too well to be afraid of his tough-guy act - but the bit that scared him was the determined look in Bucky's eyes.

The thing was, Bucky had always looked at him and seen the best version of Steve Rogers, and often, he was the only person that did. Steve needed that, and he clung to it, and that was why he was so afraid. If - God forbid - Bucky ever died, there'd be nobody who cared about him like that.

“Fine.” Steve held up his hands. “I take it back.”

Bucky slumped back on the pillows and his eyes closed, tired from that small act of exertion. It broke Steve's heart just a little, to see him - Bucky, who spent all day lifting crates - weak as a kitten; weaker than  _him_ , for a change.

“Remember last year, when they thought you had pneumonia?” he said, quiet and soft, not opening his eyes.

Steve didn't, not really, but he knew it had been the worst he'd ever been; he'd been bad enough for Bucky to get his mom - even though he was usually too proud to ask his folks for anything - who called the doctor the second she got one look at Steve. Mrs Barnes had scolded the two of them over not taking better care of themselves; Steve sometimes thought she'd scared him into not dying with a lecture. It was all a haze to him. He'd almost gone to them this time, in those terrible hours before Bucky's fever had broken, but he wouldn't do that, wouldn't burden her again.

“I remember.” The one thing he did recall was Bucky's smiling face, telling him over and over he'd be fine, until Steve started to believe it.

“I was scared, then, you know. Scared enough to cry like a girl and say all that stupid dumb stuff to you, just in case. But you- you were tough, Steve. You fought so hard, even when the doctor thought that it was it. I've never seen anyone braver.” Bucky looked away, a little pink around the ears, and it wasn't just from the fever.

Steve reached over and took Bucky's hand, thinking how Bucky was the only person he'd ever known who could go from anger to stone cold, heart-wrenching honesty in two seconds flat.

He wanted to ask him about the things he'd said to him when he thought he was dying, but then figured he was probably better not knowing. It would just hurt more; Steve knew Bucky cared, far more than he would ever let on. What hurt the most was the way he was spelling it out for him, so matter-a-fact and raw and open; it made Steve think of everything he couldn't say to him.

“I-” Steve cut his sentence off before he could start, then tried again. “I'm glad you're okay.”

“Me too,” Bucky said. He squeezed his fingers, and Steve felt the grip slacken as Bucky's eyes closed and his breathing went even.

Steve let go, wiped away the tears in his eyes with the back of his hand. It was better, really, that Bucky had gone to sleep and saved him from making any confessions of his own.

 

**3.**

“Let me get these,” Steve insisted. “We're celebrating, remember? My best buddy's fighting for his country.”

Bucky sighed inwardly; Steve was trying  _so_ hard not to sound bitter about his 4F.

“My round, Steve.” Bucky pulled his wallet out, tossing some coins on the bar in exchange for the two beers.

They grabbed a table and Steve drank down half his beer in one swallow. Bucky watched him, trying to think of something to say that didn't sound pitying, and bit it back every time.

As the enlistment day approached, the gulf between them had slowly grown, imperceptible to anyone but the two of them. Steve had been quiet, more sullen than usual, he didn't laugh so much. They'd both known from the beginning Steve wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance of making it into the army. Bucky had done all he could, dragging Steve along to boxing sessions at Goldie's and teaching him how to throw a jab and a right hook, but they'd both known that 4F was inevitable.

When the day had come, Bucky had hoped against hope that someone in the recruiting center would see Steve for what he really was: brilliant. Steve was sharp as a tack, loyal and brave as any alleycat Bucky had ever seen; he'd never seen him back down from a fight. The army needed people like him, he could see Steve leading men and inspiring them with his every word and action. Bucky had always known Steve was anything but weak; it was a shame that his body told a different story.

(The other part of Bucky was glad, really, the one that thought of Steve's small body crumpled on a battlefield, shot full of lead. At the end of the day, he was selfish enough to not want to lose his best friend.)

So there they were, in one of the bars in the neighborhood, and Steve was still clutching his rejection slip like it was going to magically change. He looked sunken in the chair, small and alone, like all the fire had gone out of him. It scared Bucky to see his friend like that, the guy who would get up every time after taking a hit. He looked done for.

Bucky took a swig of his own beer, and said, “I'm probably gonna get my ass shot off in some distant field in Europe, and when that happens, you can gloat.”

That seemed to shake Steve out of it, he laughed a little, but a second later, he was looking at Bucky, and he wasn't laughing, not anymore.

There was that gulf again; it never seemed so wide as when Steve looked at him like that, like he was the last person on the planet. A guy could do funny things when someone looked at him like that.

“I'm sorry, Steve, okay?” Bucky said at last, looking away. “I know you don't want me to say it, and maybe I shouldn't say it, but I'm saying it anyway. It's a damn shame they never took you, and we both know it."

Steve's face was red when he looked back at him. For a minute, Bucky wasn't sure if he was gonna hit him or not, but then he drained the rest of his beer and just sat there, staring straight ahead. Bucky took the hint and went to get them another round.

It was past eleven when they stumbled up the steps to their apartment, arm in arm. Steve had cheered up considerably after the third drink, and Bucky couldn't exactly remember how many they'd had after that; it was all a bit of a blur.

“Oops.” Steve nearly toppled over on the threshold and Bucky put out a hand to right him, resting it against his chest. Steve's heart was beating fast against his palm, and Bucky felt his own heart rate speed up in response.

“Thanks, Buck,” Steve said thickly, and his eyes were glassy, hair sticking to his brow with sweat.

Bucky shut the door behind them and tried not meet Steve's eyes, but then there were hands on his shoulders, and Steve was looking at him dead on, not hiding it in the slightest.

“Steve,” he said, and maybe it was the alcohol, or the way Steve's eyes were hungry on his, but Bucky forgot what he was going to say next.

Instead, he grabbed the back of Steve's neck and kissed him. It was wet and sloppy and without finesse, their teeth crashing together. Bucky bit down on Steve's lip, and heard him let out this high, keening noise that made Bucky suck in a gasp and tell him “Quiet, remember?”

And then Steve's fingers were carding through his hair, and he was sinking to his knees before him. That was when Bucky noticed he was getting hard - Christ, Steve was on his knees in front of him, how could he not be? - and denying it wasn't going to work.

“You wanted me to be quiet. So give me something to make me quiet.” Steve settled onto his knees, defiant. He folded his arms, waiting for a response.

Bucky put his head in his hands, trying to ignore his heartbeat pulsing in his ears, thinking about how wrong his plan had gone. He'd meant to tell Steve not to look at him like that, especially not in public - someone might get the wrong idea, and he'd heard about what happened to guys like that; it wasn't pretty. Maybe Steve was like that, and Bucky was okay with it, but  _he_  wasn't like that. He liked girls, liked kissing them, touching them and anything else he could get away with (which wasn't much, half the time, but he didn't like to push, the way some guys did). He'd never gone to those places with blacked-out windows on the seedy side of the docks, the way some fellas did.

But then, there was another side of him: the Bucky that traced fingers over Steve's sharp hipbones when they slept wrapped around each other for warmth, the Bucky that still sometimes thought about the night he'd been brave enough to act on the feelings he was too chicken to admit to in the light of day.

Steve looked up at him, innocence incarnate with those big eyes, lips shining with spit from his kisses, and Bucky had never been good at denial. He gave in.

“Think I didn't want you to do it back, last time?” Bucky told him roughly. “'Cause I did.”

At that, Steve gulped. He unfolded his arms, then his hands were on Bucky's slacks, ghosting up his thighs, not-quite touching the place where Bucky was suddenly hard beyond belief.

Bucky put a hand on the wall to steady himself. Steve leaned in, unbuttoning his fly with careful fingers, and Bucky licked his lips, hardly breathing.

“I wanted it so bad that I could have...” Bucky tailed off, hardly able to speak as Steve took his cock out, leaving it bare before him.

“Go on,” Steve said. Then he wrapped a warm hand around his cock, gripping the base and Bucky couldn't think clearly for wanting him to touch, do something,  _anything._

It was blackmail, but it was good blackmail, thought Bucky. Anyone who'd ever thought Steve Rogers couldn't play dirty: more fool them.

The words came out in a rush. “I could have rolled you over and pushed inside of you. I wanted to  _feel_ you.” Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, because he couldn't look at Steve, not after saying that, even when Steve happened to have a hand on his cock.

“Maybe sometime, if you're sober,” Steve said, and for a second there, Bucky thought he was gonna come just from the thought of that.

And then Steve leaned forward and took Bucky right into his mouth, and Bucky gasped, unprepared for how fucking  _great_ it felt. He'd done it with girls, once or twice, and it was nice, but it wasn't Steve.

Steve licked around the head, experimentally, and bobbed his head as he took Bucky in further. His technique was a bit hit and miss - too much spit, not enough friction - but enthusiastic. Steve scraped teeth over his cock by accident, and it drew a hiss from Bucky.

“Sorry,” he said, barely audible, and  _God,_ Bucky wasn't going to last much longer now, not with knowing what Steve's voice sounded like when he had a mouthful of cock.

“No. I kind of like it,” he admitted, looking down at Steve with a half-smile before he shut his eyes again. He was barely holding on as it was and watching Steve do that to him was too much; it was an intimacy he couldn't cope with, not even when he considered he was blind drunk and letting his best friend suck him off.

By that point, Bucky had both hands splayed out at his sides, pressed into the wall just to keep upright. Steve had figured things out a little and it was feeling better than it had any right to feel; he was trembling, trying not to make these dumb sounds whenever Steve sucked him down right to the hilt.

Steve did it one more time, flicked his tongue around a little and that was it; he was gone. Bucky came like a freight train, with a loud curse he had to muffle with his own hand. His other hand came off the wall, clutching at Steve's hair while he spilled himself inside his mouth.

Steve coughed and gagged. Bucky immediately loosened the hand, feeling remorse, but  _God,_ it had felt better than all sin to know that Steve was the one doing it to him, and he'd gotten a little carried away.

“Sorry. Could have warned you. Just felt too good.” Bucky leaned against the wall, his brain hazy with alcohol and sex.

Steve shrugged, a half-smile playing on his face as his wiped his mouth off with the back of his sleeve.

Bucky tucked himself back into his pants and buttoned up; it wasn't exactly comfortable, but with his release had come a rush of sobriety, and he didn't want to still be standing over his best pal with his pants open. Something about that wasn't right.

Steve got off his knees and sat down on the floor. Bucky sank down beside him, legs still weak and wobbly. Steve stared at him, and there were those piercing eyes again. He was gonna say something, Bucky knew it.

“Buck,” he said hoarsely, “I gotta tell you, before I get too scared or sober to say it again.”

“What?” Bucky asked, but Steve was already slackening against him, passing out into a stupor.

Bucky never got to hear what it was Steve had to so urgently tell him that night; he dragged him to bed and let him sleep it off. As the hours passed, Bucky kept waking up, hot and dizzy, kept looking over at the bed across the room where Steve was snoring drunkenly.

He spent most of the night trying not to think about Steve's promise of what he might have let him do if they hadn't been so drunk. An image flashed into his mind; Steve, under him, head tilted back to show off that neck (that neck he'd licked, once upon a time) and the way he'd feel when he pushed into him, hot and tighter than any girl. Maybe it would hurt him, though. Steve wasn't weak, but he wasn't always very good at knowing his limits; Bucky had figured that one out after years of getting him out of scrapes on the playground and in alleyways around Brooklyn.

No, he couldn't think about that. He'd been selfish enough already, and if people thought things about Steve, dangerous things, he wouldn't be here to protect him anymore. Better to forget it.

He'd be a coward instead: that was his role, always had been, and it was easy as breathing. Bucky might have been the soldier, but Steve was the brave one (he might have waited for the draft, if not for Steve's impassioned speeches about why they needed to fight for their country).

The next morning, he didn't say anything about the night before, and neither did Steve, who was nursing a blinding headache, and it was, well - not alright, but better than it could have been. Bucky shared the paper with Steve, they drank the last of the crappy expired coffee left in the cupboard and talked about some newsboy work Steve had seen.

(Like everything was normal and he hadn't let his best friend go down on him last night.)

Soon after that, Bucky went to basic and he wasn't home all that much, but he sent money home to Steve to supplement himself, so the apartment was alright. When they saw each other, Bucky made sure they were busy with outings and visits - that way, there were fewer chances for quiet moments, for Steve to give him the look that melted the skin right off his bones.

Steve tried two more times, and after the third rejection, Bucky got some tickets to see the Dodgers at Ebbets Field; they hadn't been for ages, but they'd loved baseball as kids and it seemed fitting. The way Steve beamed at him when he gave him the tickets pulled at something inside Bucky, that sharp ache he pretended not to have most of the time.

Truth was, he'd known what Steve was on the verge of saying that night, drunk though he'd been, because he'd almost said it, too, more than a couple of times.

That was the real gulf between them, Bucky thought: the gulf between what you wanted to say, and what you did say. He had the feeling Steve understood that same as he did.

 

**4.**

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Steve had always been prepared for the fact that he might lose Bucky. War was a slaughterhouse, and good men like Bucky were dying like flies every day. At Camp Lehigh, while the other guys shared cigarettes and card games, he would stretch out on his hard mattress at night and run through the scenarios in his head. If it happened, he hoped it'd be quick at least - maybe a grenade, or a shell. Most nights, Steve had fallen asleep with a gnawing ache in the pit of his stomach.

He should have known there was no way to prepare yourself for that kind of loss: when he heard the news, Steve was angry, panicked, but mostly just numb. Sheer adrenaline had driven him through that foolish suicide mission that had somehow come out alright, had driven him to finding Bucky strapped to that table, dazed and damaged and a world away from the laughing boy he remembered.

None of that mattered anymore, though, because Steve had Bucky. He had Bucky with him in his tent while the roaring of the celebrations continued outside (Steve had excused himself early, overwhelmed with the attention). They were lying side-by-side; their closeness was due to both the compact size of the tent and the fact Bucky had looked half-frozen when he'd opened the tent flap and asked to come in.

“Still can't get used to this, I swear,” Bucky said, looking up at Steve squashed up next to him on the bedroll. “You're huge.”

“I've not had the time to get used to it, either.” Steve said quietly. He tried to smile, but he didn't feel like it, not with everything that had happened. Bucky had been tough as nails all the way back, but even when the doctors had cleared him, that hadn't reassured Steve. Bucky had never told him what Zola had done, but Steve had figured out enough to know there was something different about Bucky, something haunted and dark and fearful behind that smiling bravado.

“Oh, sure,” Bucky said airily, stretching out and trying to get comfortable. “Kissing all those babies and having women's numbers pressed into your hand, all the screaming crowds. I've seen the footage, y'know, they had it on in the camp tonight.” His eyes were tired as he watched Steve, but they still had that glint in them, the promise of mischief that was entirely Bucky Barnes.

Steve groaned in embarrassment. “Then you know that's not me.”

“Isn't it? Bucky shrugged, shifting on to one elbow so he could see Steve better in the lamplight. They were close, then, so close that Steve could hear Bucky's breathing, shallow and quick.

“I just wanted to help people. You know that.” Without thinking, Steve put an arm round him, pulled him against his chest, and Bucky let him.

“I'll let the rest of the fellas think that,” Bucky said, a softness in his tone that hadn't been there before. “Me, I know better. I know Captain America's just a stubborn guy with something to prove; a scrawny little punk who's too dumb to ever give up on a lost cause.”

Steve couldn't help but smile at that, faintly.

Bucky hesitated, and said “I talked to the lovely Agent Carter”- there was something falsely cheerful in his tone, there, and it made Steve's frame go tense against him -“and she tells me you ain't invincible, like this. Maybe you never get sick anymore, and you heal fast, but you're still a man. You can break.”

Steve didn't realise he had his eyes squeezed shut, until he felt Bucky's hand on his face, stroking down the side of it and calming him enough to open them.

“Hey,” Bucky murmured, and he met his eyes head-on. “It's okay, Steve. She's quite a dame; I can see that already. The kind of girl that makes a man want to settle down and have a family after all this is over.”

Steve tried not to flinch, but he tore his gaze away, because he couldn't look at Bucky, not then.

With his usual bluntness, Bucky had managed to cut right to the heart of what was worrying Steve. He liked Peggy -  _God,_ more than liked her, thought about her red, red lips, imagined kissing her and more - and she made his palms sweat in a way he'd never felt before (well, almost never). If by some miracle, the war ended and they got out of this circus alive, he could see himself with her. That had been easier to think about when Bucky wasn't there, when he was somewhere distant, at the back of Steve's mind.

“Peggy's great,” Steve said at last, conscious of the way Bucky was still touching his face; he shivered. 

“Uh-huh,” Bucky said, a sudden fierceness in his eyes, and he dropped his hands back to his lap. “Look, I don't care if you marry her, or any girl. It was just, her saying that you're still  _you_ , despite all this, it kind of got me to thinking. You've gotta be more careful, Stevie. Don't know what I'd do if I lost you.” His voice broke on the last part, and he looked away.

“Buck,” was all Steve could say, his voice sounding just about as broken as Bucky's.

Bucky breathed in deep, and said, “You might be Captain America to all those guys out there, okay? But not to me. I know there's a war on, and you've gotta save the world, like you were always gonna do. Just try not to get yourself killed in the process. You're Steve, and I- I'm turning into a sap, apparently.”

“I get it, I think,” Steve told him. “And if you know that, then you know I would have moved heaven and earth to get you back.” The blood roared in his ears, and for one awful moment, Bucky said nothing and Steve thought about how wrong he'd gotten it,  _again._

Steve needn't have worried.

Bucky gave a strangled laugh against him, then got up on his knees, moved in close and kissed him, hot and hard with an edge of desperation. Steve didn't stop to think, just kissed Bucky back like he didn't need to breathe, cutting off Bucky's soft moan into his mouth.

His heart was pounding as Bucky pulled back and the room started to come back into focus again. Bucky had managed to hook a thigh either side of Steve's without him noticing, and was resting hands on his shoulders like he needed the leverage to stay upright. His dark hair had fallen into his eyes, and when he reached up a hand to brush it back, smiling that roguish smile, Steve thought of the boy from Brooklyn, looking into their cracked bathroom mirror and primping his hair for a date.

Still the same old Bucky, able to devastate him with one look, one gesture (one kiss). Steve knew there was a possibility that Bucky would pretend it didn't matter in the morning, but this time he didn't care,  _couldn't_  care. The way he reasoned it, Bucky needed this more than he did, because of Zola and the way he'd been trying to hide the fact he was on the verge of breaking.

That was enough for Steve, because what Bucky wanted had always been enough for him.

“C'mere,” Steve said, and his hands were sliding round Bucky's neck, into his hair, insinuating him closer. He kissed Bucky again, deep and thorough, to show him that whatever he'd lost on that factory table, he still had this.

Bucky was panting into his mouth when he shifted his hips forward, then he was right  _there,_ cock straining against the seam of his pants, pressed up against Steve's crotch. Steve slammed his hips up to meet him with a gasp - he'd been hard and aching himself since the second Bucky kissed him - half-conscious of the sounds of footsteps and drunken singing going past the tent and trying not to care.

With a dip of his head, Bucky started kissing down Steve's jaw, laying bites on his neck that made him stifle a strangled moan in his throat. He ran his palms down Steve's sides, tracing his biceps as he went.

“Always liked the way you looked, but God, Steve, like this, you feel-” he said incoherently, looking at him with unashamed lust.

Steve dragged him by the hair back up to his lips. Next thing, Steve had one hand in Bucky's hair and one up the back of his shirt, and was trying to remember that they couldn't be too loud, not here (there were fellas that did that sort of thing in the army, of course, always had been but they kept it quiet).

Bucky's hips pushed up against his cock again, with just the right pressure, and Steve's fingers tightened on his back, pulling him closer, like he could drown himself in Bucky. He forced himself to hold back a little, to not be too rough - and how strange that was, that he was the one having to be careful with Bucky, rather than the other way round - but then Bucky bit down on his lip, hard and they both stilled.

“You ain't gotta hold back. I can take it. I've had worse,” he rasped out, and that last part broke Steve more than he could admit. Still, this was about what Bucky needed.

Steve gave in. He scraped nails down Bucky's back, yanked at the hand in Bucky's hair enough to hurt, a lot. The appreciate gasps in Steve's ear told him he was doing something right.

Their hips found a rhythm, grinding into each other between dirty kisses and whispered words of need they would have never said before. Then Steve was shaking in Bucky's arms, the searing tension was pulling tight in his stomach, and he was gone with a soft cry of Bucky's name.

Hearing Steve say his name seem to push Bucky over the edge too, and he was laughing, gasping as he drew back to look at Steve.

Steve ran a hand through Bucky's hair, looked at him, all sweaty and wrecked, and kissed him one more time.

“So, I figured we might have actually taken more clothes off, but this works, too,” Bucky said with a smirk, pointedly glancing down to where dark stickiness was spreading across the front of their pants.

He conceded that Bucky had a point; it was starting to feel pretty uncomfortable, and though it was cold, taking their clothes off made sense. When Bucky reached down to pull his ratty old shirt off, Steve took the cue to do the same. They stripped off clothes until they were entirely naked before each other, for the first time - at least, the first time their nakedness had meant something. Bucky was shivering a little from the cold; Steve forgot about that sometimes - he never got cold anymore.

When their eyes met, Bucky looked away, uncharacteristically shy, until Steve reached out a hand and rested it on his shoulder. “Let's go to sleep.”

Bucky nodded, yawning, and leaned across the tent to blow out the kerosene lamp.

Steve pulled Bucky against him in the darkness, tugged the thin blankets over them and threw a hand over him, resting it on his chest.

Bucky let out a soft noise of relief. “You're so warm.”

“Remember when it used to be your job to keep me warm?” He thought about himself, the way he used to fit into Bucky's arms, but this was good, too. Better, even.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “But you're a hell of a lot warmer than I ever was.”

Steve laughed. “True enough.” Then he started thinking about how he'd almost lost Bucky, that icy numbness in his heart when he thought he'd missed his chance to ever see him again. “Need to tell you something, okay?”

Bucky's body went stiff as a board in his arms. “Can it wait until morning? Don't think I can stay awake another second.”

“Sure.” Steve got the message. He knew Bucky cared for him - he'd been more open about that tonight than he'd ever been - and somehow, that had to be enough to make him bite back the words on his tongue: that he'd fucking  _loved_  him for as long as he could remember, that he wouldn't care if the whole damn world knew.

“Who's gonna be washing out those fatigues in the morning?” Bucky asked, quiet as anything.

“Guess it's my turn,” Steve said. "Got spares, anyway. Not sure they'll fit you, though, Buck."

"Still the same old jerk." Bucky laughed softly.

He felt Bucky pass into sleep in his arms almost instantly - no doubt still exhausted from his recent ordeal - but Steve didn't sleep for a long while. Instead he lay there with one hand over Bucky's heart, listening to him breathe, telling himself that was enough.

 

**5.**

The Howling Commandos were back in London for a couple of nights, waiting on some intel for a Hydra base near Salzburg. As they often did when they had a chance for leave, they went straight to the nearest bar. The others were joining Dugan in a singalong around the piano, and Bucky had slunk away after Steve the second he had a chance (sometimes he thought the others knew, but probably, they didn't care all that much - war was a tough business, and people took comfort where they could find it).

For once, they had a room (or at least, Captain America was able to get himself a room) and they were making the most of it, of not being in tents and bivouacs where there wasn't enough room to swing a cat.

The second Bucky slammed the door behind him, Steve had him pushed up against the peeling wallpaper, mouth hot against his neck.

Bucky's spine felt liquid, and his hands were all over Steve, grasping at his arms, his ass, his hips. He kissed him hungrily, licking into his mouth until Steve groaned and slid a thigh between Bucky's.

“Want you,” Bucky managed, but then Steve pinned him tighter to the wall, stepping into his space, and fuck, he'd never get used to how  _big_  he was - solid, warm, bulk pressed into him, and he couldn't move if he tried.

“How?” he murmured, biting at the shell of Bucky's ear.

That sent a shiver down Bucky's back, and he said without thinking, “Any way you want.”

Over the past few months, they'd snatched quiet moments together in the dead of night. Steve was a quick study; it turned out he was pretty good at taking Bucky apart with his hands and mouth, but they'd never done more than that.

Except, the missions were getting more dangerous - that last base, Gabe had hurled Bucky straight out of the path of one of those monstrous blue cannons; a second later, and he'd have been vaporised - and it was getting harder for him and Steve to pretend that what they were doing didn't mean everything. These days, it didn't matter about any dame in a white dress that Bucky's mother would want him to marry, because if they survived this war, he wanted  _Steve,_ the only person who'd ever mattered all that much.

“Any way I want?” Steve raised an eyebrow, slid his hands down to Bucky's waist and pushed his thigh against his cock.

Bucky moaned a little, but he wasn't about to be distracted that easily.

Caution to the wind. Bucky met Steve's eyes dead on and told him, “That's what I said.  _Any way.”_

He kept looking at Steve, daring him to answer. There he was, Steve with kiss-bruised lips and hair askew and his chest heaving - Captain America, undone, because of him (Bucky still loved that part). There was one thing that came to mind, though - about fucking him, that way he'd blurted out he wanted to do once when blind drunk.

“I want you to fuck me,” Steve said quietly, casting his eyes down to the floor, going bright red to the tips of his ears.

Bucky peeled a hand off the wall and tipped up Steve's chin, quick and fast so he was looking at him. “You remember.” He swallowed, feeling like all the air was gone from his lungs.

“'Course I do,” Steve said, his voice rough and low, feral heat in his eyes. “You think I could forget that?”

“It's been pretty much burned into my brain ever since,” Bucky admitted, trying not to blush in turn. “I've thought about it more than once, when, y'know-”

Steve laughed softly and deliberately ground his thigh against Bucky's cock again, enough to make him gasp. “Think I haven't?”

That was almost more than Bucky could stand, the thought of Steve's hand working over his cock, thinking about  _him._ He reached down, tracing the outline of Steve's cock, and fumbled at the fastenings of his pants, hardly daring to believe it was happening.

“Bed?” Almost as soon as he said it, Steve had dragged him to the narrow cot in the corner. It smelled of damp and was about as unprepossessing as the rest of the room, but Bucky didn't give a damn.

They kissed, pulling off clothes as they went, until there was a careless heap on the floor by the bed and Bucky was flat on his back with one push from Steve.

Steve spread out a hand on Bucky's belly, and he was shaking already, the warmth of those fingers sending sparks throughout his body everywhere they touched.

“Like this?” Steve said, curling fingers around his cock, and Bucky muffled a shout, thrust his hips into the touch.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, voice getting fainter by the second. “That's good.”

Wrapping a hand around the back of Steve's neck, Bucky pulled him in for a kiss, pressing that overheated body close. Steve pressed his thumb to the head of Bucky's cock and flicked his wrist, and it was all Bucky could do not to cry out again, it felt so unbelievable.

He dragged his other hand down Steve's back, the sharpness of nails Bucky hadn't cut scratching down in a long line. Steve shuddered, his palm loosening on Bucky's cock.

Bucky had found in recent months that Steve liked it rough, though he could never admit it, and the best part was that he couldn't hurt him now, even if he tried.

“Want me to do it?” He said, putting a hand on Steve's chest.

Steve nodded, gulped. “Yeah.”

“Wait.” Vaulting off the bed, Bucky grabbed the first-aid kit, and -  _please_ , there had to be something - and came out with a tin of petroleum jelly. It'd do.

Steve leaned on to his side, watching Bucky.

He slicked up his fingers, avoiding Steve's eye, because if he considered what he was about to do, he might not do it - never mind that Bucky was rock-hard at the mere idea of it.  Shifting on the bed next to Steve, he palmed his cock with one hand, then pressed a finger inside, just a little, before he lost his nerve.

All at once, Steve panted, arching into the touch, and Bucky slowly added a second finger, then a third, until he was open and slick around him. It made Bucky harder than possibly anything had in his life, to know that he could break Steve like this, strip away his put-together exterior and reduce him to a mess of need and want.

Steve moved to kiss him, whispered “Bucky,” soft and tender in a way that half-broke Bucky. He stroked Steve's cock with languid movements and pushed his fingers deeper, finding the places that made Steve's breath hitch.

A final press of fingers, then Steve rested his head on the the pillow. Bucky reached for the tin, slicking up his cock, and drew his body over Steve until they were skin-to-skin and bare.

“C'mon, Bucky,  _please,”_  Steve said in that wrecked, pleading tone, and  _fuck,_ Bucky loved it.

He pushed inside, slow and steady, groaning at the heat and pressure.

Steve muffled a low noise in the pillow - Bucky hoped he wasn't hurting him, because super soldier or not, he was tight and that had to hurt.

“More?” Bucky asked. Steve nodded, and Bucky grit his teeth, willing himself not to go off right then and there.

He thrust deep, deep as he could go, and planted a kiss on Steve's back.  _Fuck,_ it felt good-better than anything had ever felt before, because it was Steve spread out under him, trusting him to do this. Steve was hot and slick around his cock, and Bucky whimpered before he could stop himself.

Steve rocked against him.

Bucky shifted, whispering in Steve's ear, “Yeah?”

“Mm, yeah,” Steve said weakly, and Bucky started to move, careful and gentle, shifting his hips to find an angle that worked. He panted at the friction, the sheer  _heat_  of Steve around him, and started to pick up the pace, matching Steve's movements when he thrust back at him.

" _God_ , yeah," Bucky said against his back, and Steve made a noise of agreement.

He reached for Steve's hand where it was resting on the sheets. Steve gripped his fingers tight and Bucky kept on fucking him, good and slow, feeling Steve opening for him with every stroke.

Bucky was fucking Steve, the way he'd always imagined, but any of his secret, dirty fantasies didn't even compare to the reality. They didn't compare to the sight of Steve stretched out before him, knees spread and pushing back at him with every thrust, the sound of every soft noise Steve made-it was almost too much.

He leaned right over, Steve twisted his head around and they kissed, awkward and breathless.

“Want me to?” Bucky muttered into the back of Steve's neck, and he knew what he meant. His hand tightened on Steve's hip as he went deeper, chasing the high, soaring feeling that was coiling throughout his body.

Steve guided Bucky's hand to his cock and Bucky stroked him between every motion of his hips.

“Feels so good,” Steve murmured, and Bucky's breathing faltered at hearing that. He was starting to tremble - there was no way he was gonna last - and sped up the movements of his hand on Steve's cock.

Then Steve's body went slack in his arms and he came all over Bucky's fingers with a mumble of his name and a quiet groan. The sight alone was enough to send Bucky into his own climax, and with another hard push, he jerked against Steve, shattering and panting hot into his ear.

They stayed like that for a while, Bucky trembling, stretched out along the length of Steve's sweat-damp back. Bucky's heart was pounding in his ears, his eyes were wet, and he knew he was well and truly gone, and pretending otherwise was useless.

Slowly, he rolled off Steve and grabbed a rag to clean them both.

“Can't believe we never did that before,” Steve said, and he was smiling that open, relaxed smile that was so rare to see on him these days (not that Bucky smiled much, either - there wasn't much to smile about when you could die a week, a day from now).

Bucky swallowed, thinking about nights in their little bed back in New York, nights when he'd wanted to do more than touch, and known Steve had wanted that, too, but Bucky hadn't done a damn thing. And the nights when he  _had_ , but pretended it hadn't happened in the morning.

Steve Rogers had always been able to break him like glass, with one smile or word, seeing past that stupid, cocky fool that Bucky had been all these years. He'd waited and watched, and never complained once.

All these years, Bucky had never known how lucky he was.

“You knew, didn't you? All along?” Bucky said, leaning his head against Steve's chest.

“Are you kidding?” Steve said, and his chest shook with nervous laughter. “I'd be a damn idiot if I didn't, at this point.”

“This feels good, you know,” Bucky said calmly, reaching for Steve's hand and twining their fingers together. “Right.”

“It does, huh,” Steve agreed, a sad edge tugging at his smile.

Bucky kissed him gently, pouring all his need and want into the kiss, all the words he couldn't say to Steve, because what would be the point in saying them? It was likely enough one of them wouldn't make it to the end of the war, and he would put money on Steve being the one who made it.

(It was funny to think that hadn't changed, not from when Bucky was first shipped over and had let the thought of Steve safe at home comfort him in the hell of gunfire and screams.)

“Bucky, I know I shouldn't say it, but I want to.” Steve's face was serious, eyes burning as they looked upon him. “I want to, so much.” His voice wavered on the words.

“I know, Steve. I know,”- and Jesus, he was nearly crying, voice shaking - “Let's just not say it, not now, or I really am gonna lose it.”

Bucky would be a coward, to the last.

Steve looked away, and that gave Bucky a few seconds to get a grip on himself, to keep that lid on his emotions. He wiped a hand over his eyes.

“If everything comes out alright, are we gonna still have something?” Bucky asked at last.

Steve's jaw was tight, and Bucky knew he wanted to say  _it'll be alright, stop worrying_. But he couldn't, because they had plenty to worry about, and no way of telling whether it would be alright in the end.

“Yeah,” Steve said, no hesitation, nothing; it was brave and beautiful, and it bowled Bucky over. He knew Steve was still the better man, when it came down to it.

Steve went to turn off the lamp, and when he came back, Bucky pulled the blankets up over them both, and they arranged themselves as best they could in the cramped space. Bucky thanked his lucky stars that Steve's body temperature ran hot enough these days that they could sleep naked together without freezing; there was something precious about those rare moments when they could do it.

“Night.” Steve kissed his neck and Bucky reached around to grab his hand, pulling his arm close around him.

“Just try to stay alive for me, okay?” was the last thing Bucky said before he closed his eyes.

* * *

Steve held Bucky close that night like he would never let him go.

But he did, and then he woke on the other side of time, the pain as raw and fresh as it had been seventy years ago.

It was a new century, but Steve was still clinging to the edge of that train, watching Bucky fall. The words he had never said to him became the only words that mattered, the only ones his mind whispered to him at night.

_I love you._

 

**+1.**

Steve's home in DC got the sun in the morning; that was part of the reason why he'd rented it in the first place. It was light and warm, the polar opposite of that dank, dark walk-up in Brooklyn he never let himself think of. When he first moved, he used to get back from a run and watch the sun streaming through the open blinds; it felt like hope, even on the days when he didn't have much of that.

Then came the Winter Soldier, and hope had been in short supply since then. When the dust settled, Steve tracked him across continents, with nothing to go on but secrets and ghost stories. If he hadn't had Sam, Steve probably would have cracked after the first few fruitless attempts; as it was, his hope had faded with every day they didn't find Bucky.

He stayed one step ahead of them for months, until Steve and Sam found him one day, sitting on the floor of an empty HYDRA base, looking unkempt and tired. Bucky had looked up at Steve with curiosity in his eyes and said, “I remember you. Let's go.”

The newer SHIELD facility wasn't as well equipped as the Triskelion had been, but there were facilities for someone like Bucky, and he submitted himself willingly, without complaint, to a battery of medical tests and therapies.

(That broke Steve's heart: Bucky, that argumentative son of a bitch, giving in without a fight. HYDRA had taken so much from him, but that was the worst of it.)

Gradually, they'd rebuilt their friendship; Bucky didn't always connect with stories from the old days, but Steve kept telling them regardless. Bucky liked to hear them.

Somewhere inside Steve, it hurt that this might be all he would ever get of him, but he learned to count his blessings that he had Bucky at all. If this was all it would ever be, Steve would learn to accept it. He wouldn't think about wide blue eyes looking deep into the heart of him, the warmth of a body that had fit against him perfectly, decades ago.

As the months passed, he'd kept telling himself that he could live without it. Then Bucky's eyes would fix on his for a bit too long, or he would catch him watching him out of the corner of his eye, and Steve would dare to hope.

Then one day, Steve found the Winter Soldier at his door. Bucky had a couple of weeks growth of stubble on his chin and he looked scruffy as all hell. He'd seized Steve's shirt and kissed him without a second of preamble, telling him, “I remember this.” The kiss was rough and wet, but it was Bucky all over, right down to the fake confidence in his eyes. He'd walked right out of the apartment after that, leaving Steve clinging to the doorframe and practically hyperventilating (Sam had almost cried with laughter when Steve told him about it, before he'd seen the determined look in Steve's eyes and said with a resigned sigh,  _go get him, then.)_

Since then, things had started to fit back together. Bucky wasn't quite the same, but then, neither was Steve; they were still learning new things about each other. Steve tried to make his memories of an obnoxious, laughing, sprawling Bucky fit with this one, this Bucky that moved with eerie stillness, who sometimes went minutes without making a single sound; sometimes it was hard to remember they were the same person.

When Bucky had wanted to do more than kiss, Steve hadn't been one to complain, because it felt  _so_ good, and even in the wrong century, Bucky was still that boy from Brooklyn who kissed like sin.

Just like before, Bucky could take him to pieces with methodical precision, every bite and kiss and touch measured and slow and thought-out until Steve was a panting, whimpering mess beneath him; that part hadn't changed, at least. Steve knew that intense focus came from the Winter Soldier, but it was Bucky, too, so Steve would take it, would take anything of Bucky that he offered.

It was an ordinary Wednesday morning when Steve came awake, warm and comfortable and tangled in Bucky's arms. The gaps in between the blinds were throwing shafts of light onto the bed, creating an in-between atmosphere, somewhere between night and day, in this place where there was just him and Bucky and nothing else.

“Mmm,” Bucky said against his shoulder, voice scratchy with sleep.

Steve shivered at that tone - that sleepy, soft tone of his fantasies, like that first time Bucky had touched him - and pushed back against Bucky, felt that long, solid line of him pressed into his spine.

A hand ran down his side, hot fingers splayed out over his abdomen and Steve sighed softly, not entirely awake yet.

He felt Bucky breathe hot into his ear, then a gentle bite at the shell of it, the way he always used to do. Reaching down, Steve covered Bucky's hand with his own and dragged it lower, right into the waistband of his shorts.

“Awake?” Bucky murmured, and Steve's eyes snapped open as Bucky's hand clasped his cock, sure and solid and tight.

“I am now,” Steve said, voice wavering as Bucky started to stroke him with a warm hand, slow and just the way he liked it.

He leaned back into Bucky, felt him shift against his backside, hard and wanting, and Steve  _wanted_. He wanted more.

Steve had learned over the past weeks that Bucky didn't like to be vulnerable, particularly, and he didn't like too much attention. Bucky would always find reasons to focus on Steve and not himself, only grudgingly letting Steve use his hands and mouth on him. He would fuck Steve with his face pressed into his shoulder, but he never looked at him and never made a sound apart from heavy breathing, the one response his body couldn't hide. He never said a word, and that was starting to worry Steve. It wasn't that Bucky didn't enjoy himself - Steve was sure he did, in his own way, but there was something one-sided about it.

Bucky's life as the Winter Soldier had been characterised by his lack of choice over anything that happened to his body. Steve knew that (so much that he would wake in the night sometimes, haunted by it) and thus far, he'd let Bucky take the lead when it came to intimacy. That had worked fine, except, it was starting to feel like Bucky was doing the things that he knew Steve wanted, and leaving himself as an afterthought.

With that thought ringing in his mind, Steve pulled Bucky's hand away from his cock and felt the warm body go tense against his back.

“Don't you want me to?” Bucky said, and his breathing hitched; he had so few tells these days, but there it was, that flash of uncertainty. Bucky was rattled by the idea that Steve might reject his touch, of doing something  _wrong_. It made Steve's stomach clench.

Steve turned around to face him. “No, I don't, Bucky. Not this time. This time, I'd rather it be about you.”

Bucky's face went still, into the dead, expressionless mask of the Winter Soldier. Then he made a tiny sound, like a whimper. “I don't know if I can.”

Steve took Bucky's metal hand in his own; Bucky flinched at that, but he'd gotten used to the fact that Steve wasn't going to ignore it, and he accepted the touch.

“Okay,” Steve said, willing his voice to sound steady. “How about this? We can do whatever you want. You tell me. You don't have to be quiet, or hold yourself back. You don't have to do a thing to me. And you can say  _no_  at any time and I'll stop.”

Bucky looked about as shocked as if Steve had thrown a punch. He blinked. “I can say  _no_ ,” he repeated, as if testing the words out.

Glancing down to where their hands were joined, Steve forced himself to focus on something else, because he  _couldn't_ look at Bucky and see that blank look in his eyes. Those moments hadn't happened so much, lately - the times when Bucky would casually say something that indicated the level of horror HYDRA had visited upon their asset - but they still cut deep, every time.

“C'mon then, let's see what you got,” Bucky said, settling back against the pillows, and he managed a smile that was something like his old one.

Steve drew Bucky's pants down, throwing them to the floor, and he set to work. He kissed him with varying pressure, soft and hard until Bucky started to melt against him, taut limbs loosening.

He darted out his tongue and traced the scars where the metal arm joined Bucky's skin; at that, Bucky grabbed his hair and swore. Steve smiled against his skin.

“Steve,” was all Bucky said, low and pleading when Steve dropped playful bites all down his chest and stomach, and his muscles went taut under Steve's tongue when he licked at the line of his hip.

Bucky was shaking, frame stiff and locked, hands clutching at the sheets with the effort of holding himself together. That was the Winter Soldier, careful and observant and controlled.

Steve paused, looking up into the wary blue eyes above him. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” There was a smile, then, from Bucky, like a burst of light. “Feels good.”

That was Bucky, through and through; he'd never been a big talker during sex.

Steve started all over again with the kisses and touches, letting Bucky's soft intakes of breath and sighs guide him.

“Mm,” Bucky said after a while, and his fingers tightened in Steve's hair. “Please, Steve. Put your mouth on me.”

“Yeah.” Steve huffed a breath out over his overheated flesh, and took his cock into his mouth, feeling the weight on his tongue.

Bucky gasped, a quiet sound that went straight to the heart of Steve. Flattening his tongue over the length of Bucky's cock, Steve tried not to think about how hard he was; this was about Bucky, after all.

Steve sucked Bucky off slowly, devastatingly, using every trick of his tongue while Bucky grabbed fistfuls of his hair with his fingers. It wasn't long before Bucky was trembling, one hand in Steve's hair and the metal one scrabbling at the sheets for leverage. His body had long since lost all that stillness and grace; his hips were pushing up at Steve's mouth, and he was cursing like crazy, “fuck, fuck,  _fuck_ , yeah, please.”

It reminded Steve of that time against their apartment wall, except that time Bucky had smothered his sounds with his own hand, and this time - well, Steve didn't care if the whole world heard. It was his apartment, it was the twenty-first century, and he didn't give one single fuck what anyone else thought.

He catalogued every sound that Bucky made; the quiet pants and sighs and whispers of his name that Steve had feared he would never hear again. Then Bucky was leaking all over his tongue, sharp and salty, and Steve focused, knowing he was close.

The metal hand twisted in Steve's hair, without warning; he yelped.

“Sorry,” Bucky said quickly. “Just trying to get your attention.”

Steve slid up Bucky's body, close enough that their faces were inches apart. “You still with me?” he asked, trying to read the indeterminate expression on Bucky's face.

Bucky leaned forward, long hair falling into his face, and kissed Steve gently in a moment of genuine affection. “Yeah,” he said, licked his lips a little. “Just don't want to come yet. Want to do it when you're in me.”

Steve tried to gulp down a breath, and found he couldn't. Instead, he found a grip on Bucky's shoulders.

“Think your eyes just went like saucers, Steve,” Bucky said, and he was laughing. He didn't do it often, and it still sounded strange when he did - a little rusty.

Thinking about Bucky's request, Steve wanted to say,  _hell, yes,_ and instead found himself saying, “You've got to tell me if I hurt you, okay?”

With an exasperated sigh, Bucky told him, “I'm a little harder to break these days. Think I can handle it.” Seeing the way Steve winced at those words, Bucky hastily added, “I  _want_  you to, okay?”

That was good enough for Steve.

He rummaged in the bedside drawer, then Bucky drew his knees up and Steve slid a slick finger into tight heat that gripped him. Bucky went tense around him at the stretch, but then Steve crushed his mouth to his and Bucky relaxed enough to let him push deeper.

Glancing at Bucky - he had his eyes shut, shaking already - Steve pushed in more fingers, curling them against that place that ripped a desperate moan from Bucky's throat.

He worked Bucky open slowly, leaning in to kiss at his neck, his throat, his eyes, his lips at the same time. Bucky let out short, sharp breaths through a clenched jaw, but couldn't stop his hips pushing into the touch, wanting more of Steve.

“Can I stay looking at you when we-?” Bucky asked, frowning a little as his mind figured out the mechanics of it all.

That made Steve tremble, the thought of  _looking_ at Bucky while his body slid in and out of him; it was a new level of intimacy, one that they'd been too afraid or too pressed for time to share in the past. His cock pulsed, straining against fabric.

“Yeah, think so.” Steve carefully took his pants off, lingering over the task, and then there was nothing between bare skin and the heat of Bucky under him, so much warmer than he remembered.

It was a little awkward, but Bucky shifted down the bed and Steve shuffled up a bit and somehow, they found the right angle.

Bucky slid a hand around the back of his neck, keeping his metal one on the sheets.

Steve leaned in to kiss him, open-mouthed and deep, and then he was pushing inside, stealing Bucky's breath.

Steve shuddered, grit his teeth and went stock-still inside him, trying not to come straight away; it felt too good, being inside Bucky and looking in his eyes, touching him and _feeling_ him like this.

Bucky's eyes opened, and he said, “Oh.” It was just one word, said quietly against his lips, but it tore Steve open like a blade.

“Hurting?” Steve asked, seeing the tightness around Bucky's eyes that told him he was in pain (and it killed him a little that he had to ask, because there was no way Bucky would admit to it otherwise).

“Yeah, a bit,” Bucky replied, sounding calm as anything, but he was breathing all shallow and quiet, and Steve could feel him shaking beneath him. “Don't stop.”

When Steve pushed in a bit more, Bucky lifted his hips to meet him, and he panted into Bucky's mouth. Suddenly, the only thoughts in his head were how incredible and tight and searing-hot Bucky felt around him.

“Good?” Steve said, thrusting a little more, encouraged by the small sounds Bucky was making against his lips.

“Fuck, yeah. Yeah,” Bucky replied, seemingly incapable of coherent speech.

Steve sucked a bruise into Bucky's neck and they found a rhythm, moving together in a way that felt more right to the two of them than anything had in a long while. He lifted his head so he could watch every reaction, and his world reduced to the intensity of Bucky's eyes on his, the wet, filthy sound of his thrusts and Bucky's soft gasps each time Steve sunk deep into him.

Bucky's breathing went ragged and his eyes were soft on Steve's, a hand carding through his hair.

Steve was lost, broken open already, and he didn't even care. He drowned himself in Bucky with panting, breathless kisses to his neck and hands gripping Bucky's hips tight enough to mark the skin.

It was hard to believe it was real. Bucky was letting Steve take him apart, groaning softly into his ear, palms running up and down Steve's sides as he pushed back at him, urging him deeper. It was hard to imagine anything better, not even those memories of them together in the war, promises of sweat made in quiet moments, snatched whenever they could.

Steve could feel the sharp heat coiling inside him, that delicious, aching burn every time he sheathed himself in Bucky, and knew he wouldn't be able to go much longer.

“I need-” muttered Bucky, and Steve reached down, understanding what he wanted. He dragged the metal hand from the sheets, ignoring Bucky's surprised intake of breath and pushed it between their bodies.

The sudden coolness made them both gasp. A few drags of the cool, smooth metal over Bucky's cock at the same time Steve sped up his movements, and he felt Bucky clamp down around him as he came with a shudder and a cry of Steve's name all over their joined hands.

It had been more than seventy years since Steve had heard Bucky say his name like that, in that broken whisper, and that was enough. Everything in his field of vision went white, and with another rough push or two he was there, filling Bucky with the warmth of his release.

“You've been holding out on me,” Bucky said at last, in a voice so cracked it was barely there.

Steve opened his eyes from where he was collapsed on top of Bucky, sore and trembling, arms laid flat on the sheets. “Been holding out on myself.”

Bucky grinned, self-satisfied and lazy, and that was it: Steve didn't want to wait to say those words, not another minute or second or day.

He never got the chance.

Bucky looked up at him with an unreadable expression, fixing those blue eyes on Steve's, and he said, “Fucking hell, Steve Rogers. I love you.”

Since they were kids, Bucky had always been able to take him by surprise, and there he was, saying the words that Steve had needed all along. It was one of the bravest things he'd ever seen Bucky do.

“Love you too, Buck,” was all Steve managed to say before he dropped his head back to Bucky's neck. He was softening inside him, so he pulled out, but Bucky put an arm around him, stroked his hair. They stayed like that for a moment, warm and sticky and pressed against each other, until the come cooling on Bucky's stomach got too uncomfortable to ignore.

“You said it,” Steve murmured, raising his head to look up at Bucky. He looked great; hair splayed out all over the pillow, chest heaving and so thoroughly fucked-out that Steve was almost tempted to start all over again.

Bucky rolled his eyes, and snorted. “Yeah, I said it. Happy?” He turned away from Steve, grabbing a handful of tissues to clean them both up, but Steve saw him smile.

“Very, actually.” Steve felt a smile creasing at the corners of his lips, and thought about a freezing room in an old Brooklyn apartment, a rickety bed piled with blankets, whispered kisses and gentle hands on his skin. But Bucky was still Bucky, and he still hated it when Steve was right; some things never changed.

“It's not like you haven't known all along,” Bucky said gruffly, looking at the floor. Steve threw an arm around him, shaking with laughter.

For once, Bucky was right. Steve had always known.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this was supposed to be a light-hearted, short, smutty little 5 times fic, and then it turned into the huuuuuuge fic of FEELS and ran away from me.  
> You're welcome to come yell at me about Steve/Bucky/Marvel/other fannish things on my twitter or tumblr if you so wish (glitteratiglue on both).


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